Don't Hurt Me
by preciselypotter
Summary: It all just comes down to choice. Choose one or the other. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** Really? You're serious?

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Don't Hurt Me

"Are you alright?"

Lily glanced up, drying her eyes with the back of her hand violently. "What?"

He stepped forward, eyes concerned behind his spectacles. "Are you alright?" he repeated.

"Why should you care?" she asked bitterly. "It always amuses you when I'm upset."

"No, I… it never amuses me," he said, sounding shocked. "Why would it?" James came to sit beside her in front of the fire, his hands twisting anxiously together. He did not look directly at her, and she fidgeted at the nearness of him.

"But you always laugh at me," Lily said darkly. "When things happen to me, you always laugh."

James didn't say anything, shifting uncomfortably. They sat in silence together, but very much apart. She felt uncomfortable by his presence, the same way she always did. _He_ unsettled her, after years of tormenting her best friend and her as well, all she felt was anxiety before him.

After a time, he asked again, "Are you alright?"

"I… no, I'm not." She laughed coldly. "I'm anything but alright."

"What's the matter?"

"I think you know," answered Lily. "Severus. It's always Severus."

She hazarded a glance at him to see his complexion darken. "Yeah, I guess it is," he muttered. "What did he do this time?"

Lily shook her head numbly. "It seems like every time I turn into an empty hallway, he's there, trying to be my friend again. And I know, I know where his loyalties lie and who he's become, but the pathetic thing is, I want to take him back. I miss him."

"You miss him, even though he called you a mudblood in front of half the school."

"It was your fault he said that!" she snapped. "If he wasn't hanging upside down from _your_ spell, it wouldn't have come out."

James shot her a look. "Maybe I did you a favor."

She gaped. "How was that a favor?"

He shrugged. "At least now you know what he's been thinking."

"I wish I didn't know," she admitted. "I wish we were still friends – sometimes, I think that if I'd stayed with him, he wouldn't be the way he is now."

"Lily, there are some things that don't change," James said quietly. "I mean, look at the people he chose to be friends with once he got to Hogwarts. They weren't like you, Lily. Maybe he's always been dark on the inside, and there was nothing you could do."

"What does that say about me?"

James rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It says… you hope for things."

She wiped away another runaway tear. "So, I'm naïve? Is that what you're telling me?"

"No, I mean you're an optimist."

They were quiet again, and Lily took this in and studied it in the flames. The fire licked the air, spelling out a language of confusion and hope and worry. She felt warm from the heat in front of her and the heat by her side. He seemed to emanate a feeling of intensity that warmed her on the inside rather than her skin.

"I was crying because he asked me to be his friend today, and then three hours later…" she shook her head disgustedly. "He and Mulciber were torturing Mary. I don't mean little spells, they were _torturing_ her. She couldn't breathe; they were cutting her air off."

"Was it both of them, or just Mulciber?"

"Both of them."

James shook his head piteously. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"Alright, I'm not," he allowed. "I never liked him."

"It just hurts!" she burst out, holding her chest as if stapling it together. "Every time I see him doing something, it's like he's doing it to me! And when he wants me to accept him, even when he does this over and over again, what does that mean he thinks of _me_? That I could live with him and condone him?"

"It _should_ hurt," said James darkly. "It should hurt him."

"But I don't want him to hurt," murmured Lily. "If it feels as bad to him as it does to me, I don't want anyone to hurt like this."

He twisted his mouth as if something bitter had taken residence inside it.

She shook her head despairingly. "I'm so pathetic; wanting to go back to something that hurts."

"I wouldn't."

"What?"

"Hurt you. I wouldn't, not ever."

Lily stared at him incredulously. "But you already have!" she burst out. "Every time you made fun of me, or hurt Severus, or did something stupid and obnoxious just because you could and because you knew it would bother me, it was like a slap in the face."

James looked away from her and mumbled something.

She frowned. "What was that?"

"I said, I only did that because you wouldn't pay attention to me," he repeated, his face unnaturally red.

"So it's just a big ego trip to you?"

"No!" he burst out, and then quieted. "You're the only person I wanted to notice me."

Lily felt her confusion mix with amazement. "But I _did_ notice you," she said. "I noticed you when you weren't looking. When you did your homework in the corner, or went to the Hospital Wing to visit Remus. That's when I noticed you, not when you were being an arse."

He looked at his hands, still folded together and fidgeting. "So why didn't you… why won't you go out with me?"

At these last words, his voice broke and he shot up out of his seat, walking to and fro in front of the fireplace. His agitation was contagious; she felt herself wanting to follow his pacing until every ounce of pent up frustration and worry abandoned her body.

Instead, she answered, "Who was asking, James? The boy that wanted attention, or the one that had a heart?"

"Both, neither, I don't know," he confessed. "I just thought – well, I wasn't thinking, was I?"

A hand through his hair, a brush on his shoulder to rid imaginary lint. These were the signs of a nervous boy, and she had only perceived them before as motions of arrogance and cockiness. She understood now, realized it was just a scared little boy under the shroud of a cruel teenager.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why me?"

James stared at her, ceasing his walk. "Why not you? Why would it ever not be you?"

"I don't understand," insisted Lily.

In a flash, he was on his knees before her, face imploring and slightly mad. "How could you understand? You make me feel things that I don't understand, and they're _my_ feelings! It's my body and it doesn't make any sense to me when you're around. Everything is different, it scares me, and you scare me the most!

"I've tried everything," he continued. His voice tugged at her heart, the desperation in it haunting her. "I've tried to get you to care, I've tried to stop caring. I've done everything I know how to do and it's not the right thing. Lily, please –" he broke off, sinking lower to the ground.

Lily held a hand over her mouth in shock.

His voice was quiet now. "I know I'm not… _him_." They both knew he meant Severus. "I know I can never be him, or be like him to you. But I could be something else, someone different and maybe better. I don't know; I don't know anything, but I know I could be, I know that much."

Something else, something better…

Everything shook inside her. James was right, he could never be Severus. It simply wasn't possible, the role had been filled and even now in its vacancy the shape was so unique that nothing could fit in its place. But something different was possible.

Only… making something different would mean opening herself up again, exposing herself to another being that could easily tear her apart again.

"Don't hurt me," Lily heard herself saying, her voice weak and cracking and broken.

The tears began to fall like drops of rain in a storm, cascading down her cheeks and everywhere, onto her lap and on the skin of James' hand.

"I don't want to," he insisted. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Then don't," she begged.

"What do you want me to be, Lily?" he implored. "What can I do?"

"Just stay the same as you are now."

"Right now?"

"Right now."

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(Author's Note): I know, not exactly typical… or is it too typical? Anyway, it always disturbed me that JKR said she would have chosen Snape the second time 'round, because I couldn't understand how someone could choose him in that capacity. So, I guess, it's an answer for my own self, but I'll post it anyways.

Please Review ^_^


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